Of Daffodils and Daisies
by born30
Summary: For Tony and Ziva, Mother's Day has long been a somber holiday, and this year looks to be no different. Tiva AU.


**Disclaimer:** No change here. Still don't own NCIS or its characters. Bummer.

* * *

"_In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends."_

~Kakuzo Oakura~

"Oh, come on already!" Dropping a loose fist on the desk, McGee puffed out a loud exhale, shaking his head at the source of frustration on his computer screen. "Why can't this just work?"

It was strange to witness the tech guru more than a little flustered by anything with a hard drive, but that was exactly what Tony and Ziva found when they exited the elevator, returning to the office from a lunch hour that got away from them. Their smiles, directed at each other, dimmed as they took in their friend's distress.

"Is there something wrong with your computer?" Ziva asked, leading the way into the bullpen.

"Yeah, you look close to committing a cyber crime against that screen, McWi-fi."

"Very funny, Tony." McGee rolled green eyes at his colleague's smirk. "It's stupid, really. I mean, I've hacked into the CIA, Mossad, DoD. You'd think I'd be able to figure out a flower shop's ordering form."

Tony glanced around at the busy fourth floor of NCIS headquarters. "I don't think I'd be broadcasting that for the whole office to hear."

"What, the hacking?"

"No. Who can't order flowers online? As a member of the male race, you should be ashamed of yourself."

McGee continued tapping at his keyboard. "I suppose all the 'I'm Sorry for Being a Jerk' bouquets you've had to send to displeased dates over the years made you an expert?"

"You have never sent _me_ flowers." Freshly situated behind her desk, Ziva nestled her chin in the basket formed by her palms, elbows resting on the hard surface, challenging him as much with the statement as with her unwavering stare.

As a strangled laugh wielded its way up his throat, Tony eased himself onto the edge of her desk, using the gain of proximity to lend intimate emphasis to his excuse. "I have different ways of making up for my foolishness with you, Sweetcheeks."

Unconvinced brown eyes narrowed in on him. "I like daffodils."

"Noted." Tony swiveled around, pointing decisively at the far work station. "And I would be able to get them to her because I can successfully operate the Internet."

McGee was on track for a headache from all the eye-rolls he was racking up. "Forget I said anything."

"Ignore him, McGee," Ziva advised, delivering a playful poke to Tony's side that jolted him to his feet with an equally playful yelp. "Who are you sending the flowers to? Delilah's birthday was a few months ago, yes?"

"Yeah. Actually, I was _trying _to arrange for some tulips to be sent to our moms."

Tony's face scrunched in confusion. "What'd you do to them? You're mother-in-law, I can understand, but…"

"I didn't do anything to them! It's for Sunday." McGee glanced between their matching clueless expressions. "Guys, you seriously don't know what's happening this weekend?"

"I doubt you mean the wedding we're going to in my hometown," the sandy-haired special agent deduced.

"It's Mother's Day."

The pair exchanged knowing looks.

"Well," Tony said testily, settling in the chair behind the desk across from hers and propping his feet up on the edge. "It's not like that particular holiday applies to either of us, McInsensitive."

Enlightenment dawned on the computer genius's face, followed closely by a cringe. "Gosh. I'm sorry. I…forgot, I guess."

"No need to send us flowers to make up for it. Assuming you could."

This time, McGee just absorbed the jab.

Tony wasn't sure how someone could _forget_ the fact that their teammates of over a decade were both motherless, but whatever. He'd suffered through the yearly ritual of maternal celebration since childhood, always on the outside looking in. The exclusion never got easier; he just got better at evading the onslaught of greeting cards and sappy commercials for the two weeks leading up to the inevitable date in May. Apparently, he'd gotten so good at it that the infamous day slipped his mind completely this year.

And though she endured the same fate for a large chunk of her adult life, Ziva was far more adept than him at keeping her emotions in check.

"Do not whip yourself up about it, my friend," she reassured. "It's quite alright."

"Beat," both men corrected with practiced coordination.

Her sigh was long and heavy, and tired—more so than the usual weariness that came with acting as referee between the two of them. It was the same fatigue Tony saw in her at lunch, and more acutely, in her rejections of his bedroom advances over the past few weeks. Maybe flowers weren't such a bad idea, even if he wasn't sure what they would be apologizing for.

"Don't you both have work to do?"

"They sure do, Agent Da-_veed_," Gibbs chimed in, timing his swoop into the bullpen perfectly, as usual. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Especially that husband of yours."

Breaking into a wide, self-conscious beam, Tony dropped his feet to the floor, the movement jerking him upright. "Hey, Gibbs, I was just bringing her back from…oh, hi there, Agent Spencer. It's been awhile."

"Sir," the tall, athletic agent acknowledged, falling out of step with her boss to stand over her predecessor. The dark-blonde was tight-lipped but amiable. And eerily patient.

"No wonder Gibbs likes you," he muttered, circling out from behind the desk one way as his replacement swerved into his vacated seat from the other side. "Where'd you find her again?"

Gibbs spared no glance up from the stack of paperwork in front of him. "The Marines, DiNozzo."

"Oh, right. _Oorah_."

With her Mona Lisa smile in place, Ziva cleared her throat and subtly indicated toward the elevators. "You should go."

"Gone." Tony made for the hall, but paused at the barrier around her cubicle. "See you at home," he whispered, punctuating the promise with a wink he wished could be a kiss to the gentle stretch of her forehead.

The smile she returned was practically a reflex, even before it was interrupted by a yawn that she covered behind a delicate hand. That was one mystery he'd have to investigate later.

His own team was waiting.

* * *

Though Tony didn't realize it at the time, the few occasions when he took over the MCRT from Gibbs—even for that whole summer—he'd really gotten nothing more than a false sense of the reality that was leading one's own set of agents. Inheriting a well-oiled machine, molded and finessed through head slaps, tough love, and years of dedication was in no way an accurate practicum for the challenge of starting from scratch. He'd been the substitute teacher, then; now, he had his own classroom and no shortage of instruction to impart. Even after two years under his tutelage, the group still needed their fair share of hand-holding.

But for the rest of that afternoon, his little probies would have to muddle through without his expert guidance. For though Tony was physically downstairs with his team, in his bullpen, his head stayed upstairs in the earlier conversation, turning it over and over on a loop.

Mother's Day was always a somber holiday for him and Ziva, for obvious reasons. The day served as a reminder of what they lost too soon in their respective life streams. He didn't like to dwell on, or God forbid, talk about things that caused him too much pain. But this was what it was. Fact: Sara Paddington DiNozzo died; it started as a chest cold and a nasty, hacking cough; it became pneumonia; and then one day after many in the hospital, she was gone. Fact: Her son was eight-years-old.

Over the years, psychologists helpfully informed him that he never got a chance to grieve properly amidst the string of boarding schools, failed relationships, and career changes that came afterwards, not even taking into account the lack of fatherly support along the way. There was a reason he didn't go to therapy unless it was mandated for work.

Ziva, on the other hand, was much better at coping than him. Awful as it was, she'd had more practice.

Then again, maybe _coping_ wasn't the right word. It was more like...honoring. The yearly visits to the opera for Tali. The trips back to her homeland, always around the beginning of January, to pick olives from the groves where her father grew up. Her mother, Rivka, though…Ziva spoke of her the least.

They'd known each other as co-workers and then friends for eight years, and been dating for half of another, when she finally shared with him more than the fact itself. The reveal came late into a typical date night at his apartment.

"It was an illness, and it came on very fast," the naturally private Israeli confessed in a small voice that had him leaning closer to her on the couch. "I was in Asia, on assignment for Mossad, at the time. It was not long after Tali had been…"

"That must have been hard on you both," he inserted into the silence she could not fill with a truth of her own. Fact: Her sister was killed.

A deft swipe of her fingers at the corner of her eye could not hide the sorrow from him.

Not for the life of him could he remember what got them to that point in the conversation, or if it was brought on by the movie they'd just finished; _Terms of Endearment_ had that affect on some woman, though his current girlfriend (and the last, he had already decided) was not like most women. He was convinced that was part of the reason he fell in love with her. There were so many, it was hard to keep track.

However they got there, this seemed like the moment of the evening that would matter the most later. With that in mind, he waited her out, stroking his thumb back and forth, back and forth, over a quarter-sized patch of skin just under the sleeve of her t-shirt.

"The doctors did not know what was wrong with her," she eventually continued, the flicks of her hands cluing him in to her uneasiness with the memories. "I barely had time to request leave before it was…too late."

When she stopped moving altogether, stilled by the final admission, he craved for her nervous jitters to return. Otherwise he was useless to her, and that drove him insane. Only her hand rose, landing limply on her chest, fingertips gathering the Star of David pendant resting on bronzed skin into her palm. The gold necklace, he knew, was her mother's.

There was nothing he could say, though he tried anyway. "I'm no doctor, but it sounds like she died of a broken heart."

Her graceful face tilted up towards him, revealing eyes ringed with unshed tears, and an expression that was enough to break _his _heart.

"It is only that, she had not lost everyone yet," Ziva choked out around a sob she refused to set free.

It was one of those instances Tony would come to recognize all too well: the ones where she retreated into herself for the rest of the night and all he could do was hold her and wait for her to come back to him.

Now, just under a year into their marriage, he was also aware that those moments were few and far between, and when they did strike, she would wake the next morning slightly melancholy, maybe, but altogether recovered. And not once had any such breakdown occurred on a Mother's Day.

So why was his gut telling him there was one on the horizon?

* * *

Tony felt like he walked into a rerun of _The Dick Van Dyke Show_ as he maneuvered into his house that night, arms loaded down with plastic shopping bags while he utilized his best fancy footwork to kick the front door shut behind him. Good thing they didn't own an ottoman.

He was barely down the hall when her voice filtered out to him from further inside. "Did you get my text?"

"Yes, dear," he called out teasingly. "You're going to be so proud of me: I remembered the avocados! Third time's the charm."

He could practically hear her eyes roll. Just knowing she was home, probably curled up nice and cozy somewhere, per her habitual post-work unwinding ritual, spurred his hands to make quick work of the groceries. He was pretty sure a box of granola ended up in the fridge, but a minute later, the bags were emptied. After grabbing the only item he bought that wasn't on her list, he left the kitchen in search of his wife.

Ziva was doing exactly what he'd predicted, a book open in her lap as she relaxed on the sofa. After spending hours confided in a professional bun, her natural curls were loose, cascading over her shoulders. The stretch of her lean legs, swathed in the yoga pants she liked sleeping in, took up almost the entire length of cushions. That she was already dressed for bed before they'd eaten dinner was indicative of a trying day at the office.

Weren't they all?

"What is this?" she gasped delightedly at the small bouquet of daffodils he presented upon entering the living room.

"Like 'em?"

As soon as she accepted the three perfectly bloomed flowers and held them to her nose, her dark eyes flared up over the buttery petals. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, I swear! Yet," he allowed, flashing a grin. "The night is still young."

Tony braced one hand on the top of the couch, leaning over to press his lips to hers, their weight and warmth and sureness renewing promises he'd made to her in private, crumpled sheets the only thing between them, long before he spoke the words as vows in front of their family of friends.

"Hm-mm," she hummed into the pocket of shared, heated breath in the wake of their parting. "_Mon chéri_."

When he had her speaking in nothing but syllables and a foreign language, he knew he was doing something right.

There was a smile in his voice. "So you _do_ like the flowers?"

"They are beautiful. Thank you." After a final inhale of the fragrant blooms, she reached around him and plopped the stems into the half-full water glass on the end table.

Tony questioned the action with a raise of his eyebrows whilst lifting her legs, sliding into their vacated space on the cushions, and lying them down again over his lap. "Done with that water, were you?"

Her shoulders shrugged, as if her drink served a better purpose hydrating his gift than her. "Tell me, how was the rest of your day?"

A deep sigh, mined from the abyss of his frustration, tumbled out ahead of his reply. "Wong and Jones were going at it again, and then they almost lost track of a suspect they'd _just brought into custody_. I mean, the guy was in the building already—handcuffed!" A tired shake of his head, another sigh. "I tell ya', I don't know how Gibbs did it with us. These probies make me want to build a boat or something."

He loved the way she laughed, like she really meant it, every time. It reminded him why he made so many jokes when in her company—the throaty, decidedly feminine sound was one of his favorite in the world.

"Follow your instincts, trust what _you _were taught, and it will get easier." Her words, as much as the hand she cupped to his cheek, comforted him. She'd always believed he could do the whole Team Leader thing, even when he doubted himself. Turning his head, he planted a kiss into her palm, a gesture of thanks.

"What about you, huh?" Tony accentuated the shift in the conversation by running a soothing hand up and down her thigh. "How was the rest of your afternoon?"

"Fine."

"Just fine?"

"I would tell you if it was not."

"It's just, you've been…" His hand stilled and he caught her gaze, searching for inspiration in its toasty depths. "Worn out lately, I've noticed, and kind of…" He wanted to say distant, but was afraid the former assassin wouldn't take kindly to that assessment of their sex life. It'd been fifteen days. Not that he was keeping track. "Distracted, I guess."

Ziva set aside the book, resting her unoccupied arms across her stomach. "You are not wrong," she admitted. "But I _am_ fine, if a little 'worn out,' as you say."

As a cheeky grin slinked across his mouth, his hand roamed north to her hip, tugging her closer. "You know, if you want to skip Max's wedding this weekend, if you're too tired or whatever, we can stay here instead. In bed the entire time, if that's what you need."

It took but a choice look to call out his motives. Though, he considered it progress that she made no attempt to remove his hand from its alluring perch.

"I would not ask that of you, nor is it necessary," she stated firmly. "He is your friend."

A shrug deflected the significance of the association. "We grew up on the same street, got sent off to the Military Academy together, but I haven't seen him in a few years. I'm surprised he invited me, to be honest."

"Be that as it may." The brunette regarded him with a fond tilt of her head. "I was rather hoping to see your hometown."

"Yeah? 'Cause I was kinda hoping to show it to you." Heat radiated from the spread of his lips, melting his qualms about the trip. Except for one. "So you're okay then?"

"Why would I not be _okay_?"

His head dropped back to the couch, rolling to the side to keep her in his sights. "I don't know. You get sad when certain dates come up, and then the thing with Mother's Day and McGee today…Is that what's bothering you? You don't have to hide it from me."

Her head was shaking as she channeled the agility he witnessed from her in the field to deftly switch from lounging to upright, swiping her legs beneath her and popping up on her knees beside him. His hand, formerly in full ownership of her hip, hung in the air for only a moment before she reclaimed it, sliding her fingers between his and cradling their union to her body.

"Tony, listen to me," Ziva demanded, employing the magnetic draw of chestnut eyes to secure his full attention. "I miss my mother every day. And Tali, and my father. A day on the calendar does not have the power to make me miss them any _more_ or less. Loss is not that predictable. When it wants to be known, you cannot mistake it. It just… _is_."

Tony blinked against her intensity. He thought he understood what she was talking about, if it had anything to do with the aches that rose up within him sometimes, unexpected and anonymous yet in every way demanding to be felt.

Besides, no one had ever told Ziva David how to feel and lived to see the outcome. He wasn't willing to take the risk.

"I hear you, loud and clear," he said, delivering a squeeze to their joined hands that doubled the assurance. "Mother's Day: not an issue."

But if not that, what was?

"Then it is settled," she announced, pleased, before dropping a few pecks to his mouth and gracefully rising off the couch to her feet. "I will get dinner started."

As she collected the daffodils from their unorthodox vase and made for the kitchen, the thought occurred to Tony that maybe getting out of the city, away from his B-Team worries and the same old routines of their existence, would be good for them.

A guy could hope, couldn't he?

* * *

They departed D.C. after work on Friday, and thanks to Ziva's notorious manner of driving, their ride up the coast to Huntington was an expedited four hours. They rolled into the northern Long Island berg under a thick blanket of darkness; all they saw of his hometown that night was the inside of the bed & breakfast that held their reservation.

He barely noticed that another opportunity passed them by, extending the streak by one more night, because upon contact with the crisp cotton sheets, he fell asleep almost as instantaneously as his wife.

Daylight sifting in through the filmy curtains woke them from their tangle of malleable limbs. He reached for her, tugging her closer.

"Remember our wedding?" he mumbled sleepily into her neck, wrapping his arms around her slim waist beneath the covers.

Nothing would top the flash-bang of a shindig they would attend later that day. Unlike Anthony DiNozzo, Sr., Max's father hadn't squandered away their family's old money fortune in bad investments. If their mansion on a private inlet of Huntington Harbor was any indicator, all their investments had been very, very good. Their son's wedding reception would be held on the property's vast lawn, and Tony was certain it would be a party worthy of Jay Gatsby himself. (From the 1974 classic, obviously, not the Baz Lurhmann remake.)

But in its own intimate way, the DiNozzos' small interfaith ceremony, followed by a select gathering of loved ones at Gibbs' house, had been more their speed anyway.

"Yes, of course." Ziva turned her head on the pillow, luring his gaze up to meet hers. "Do you?"

His exaggerated pondering was met with a firm swat to his butt. "Hey, I was just kidding," he insisted, dissolving in chuckles when confronted with her unamused glare. "Believe me, I remember the important parts."

"Such as?" From the tone of her voice and the arch of fine eyebrows, she was clearly in need of convincing.

The back of his knuckles grazed the length of her cheek, the gentle touch in direct proportion to the overflowing dose of affection for her in his eyes.

"You."

And the tender softening of her expression at his profession almost made him blow off his friend's wedding altogether, but it was Ziva who kept their exchange of warm, lingering kisses brief, free from interfering with another couple's day of nuptial bliss.

Luckily, it wasn't the whole day. Max's wedding featured that awkward gap of a few uneventful hours between the ceremony and the reception, during which guests were left to their own devices for entertainment. Tony saw it as the perfect opportunity to fulfill Ziva's request to see the sights of his youth, and he was happy oblige as tour guide.

Downtown, the shoreline, the park where his love of basketball originated in weekend pick-up games with the junior high boys. His childhood home was among the locations they drove by, the green shutters his mother had picked out replaced with white-washed versions. The new owners added on a covered porch in the back and a waist-high fence to match the shutters. There was probably more peace in the house now, too. Far more than when he left it.

"Jeez, this brings back a lot of memories," he told his companion, feeling bittersweet's pitch at the back of his throat. It was amazing to him how much could change, and how much could stay exactly the same, in almost twenty years.

Ziva's hand glided over his thigh, the reassuring squeeze of slender fingers drawing out a modicum of the aches and pains from his past, sharing their burden with him. She was by far his favorite addition to his life since Huntington.

How the last stop on the tour became the cemetery, though, Tony wasn't sure.

Maybe it was because, after a week of swirling thoughts, he felt like trying a little harder for his mom. Or maybe because there was a chance it would be another twenty years before he came back to this place.

He said as much to Ziva.

"Perhaps you do not need a reason to visit her," she replied, matching his strides across the well-kept grounds. As usual, she was right.

That unmistakable, fresh-cut-grass aroma hung in the dewy air as his muscle memory kicked in, leading them to a shady nook of the cemetery where mature willow trees served as unofficial markers for the simple plot. In their wedding guest finery, under a bleary sky streaked with clouds, they paid their respects.

Hazel eyes darted from a neighboring tombstone, besieged in mourners' bouquets to the point of obscuring the name and epithet, to his mother's bare grave. "Where's McFlowerShop when you need him?"

Ziva released his arm with a start, rummaging in her purse for a second before producing a small bundle of white daisies, the trimmed stems bunched by the tie of a blue satin ribbon. "Will these do?"

His disbelieving laugh was snatched by the light breeze, its echo carried up into the branches of the willows. "Did you steal those from the ceremony?"

The shrug of her lips neither admitted nor denied the act of thievery. A pew at the church was missing its shining decoration.

For him, there was a more significant mystery to solve. "How did you know…?"

"You are a good man, Tony," his partner in everything said simply, her eyes tinted golden in the natural light. "And a good son."

Her touch that soothed him in the car tried to work its magic again, this time lying over the lapel of his grey suit jacket—over his heart—but it didn't have the same effect.

"Sometimes I'm not so sure." He accepted the bouquet from her and crouched down to rest it against the stony marble. This was the most recent in a meager total of visits. How had over thirty-five years passed since she died? Realizing that his lifespan had well surpassed hers, he suddenly felt old. Old, and aside from earning Ziva, with little to show for his extra time. _Tony_ was his mother's legacy. What was his? A team that didn't listen to him?

Tony lifted his gaze from the ground, setting it into a long stare across the quiet rows of gravestones until the world blurred in dull blues and greens. "You're so much better at this stuff than me. You always know what to do and say…"

"It is not as though you need to be Ducky," she reasoned, referring to their medical examiner colleague and superstar at conversing with the dead. "You do not have to do or _say_ anything if it does not feel right."

"That works for me, because…I don't know what I'd tell her."

Ziva guided him up, her grip remaining fierce on his arm even once he was standing again, braced against her side. "I think," she began, choosing her words deliberately, "your mother would like to know that you are loved, and happy, and have made a life for yourself that you are proud of." Her pause was short, and when she continued, there was a lilt to her accent. "And that you are going to be a wonderful father to our child."

Tony scrubbed at the back of his neck, squinting into the cautious sunlight falling in stripes over the cemetery. "See what I mean, you make it seem so—"

His head whirled around, discovering dancing eyes and her bottom lip snagged between pearly teeth. He could only imagine what his own face was doing.

"Ziva, did you just say…"

Her hand slid into his, intertwining their fingers. "Yes."

"Is this why you've been so tired and, well, uninterested in certain things?"

"All normal symptoms for the first month," she answered factually, putting the puzzles pieces together for him.

Wagging a playful finger between them, Tony teased, "You've been keeping secrets from me, Mrs. DiNozzo."

"One," she corrected, "and only because I wanted to be sure first. I had planned to tell you tomorrow."

"Ah." The special agent cast his gaze down at the grave and the daisies, and the words he couldn't find earlier finally flowed. "I guess this gift makes up for all the times I didn't get you anything. Happy Mother's Day, Mom."

It was a day early, but years overdue.

Ziva took her mother's necklace in hand—the token of remembrance and honor she kept closest, always—and lifted her eyes towards the sky. "Yom ha-em same'ach, Ima."

A gentle breeze tumbled down through the low-hanging branches of the willows, ruffling the blades of grass at their feet.

"You are pleased?" Rather than worry, there was only a search for confirmation of what she already knew to be true in the query.

Though they'd talked about having kids, it'd been on the back burner for awhile, but now that it was happening…all he knew was that his mouth was going to hurt later from the intensity of the grin he couldn't contain.

"Yeah," Tony promised, pulling the mother of his future child into his arms and lowering his lips to hers. "Not even a question."

From then on, their Mother's Days—and their lives—were never going to be the same, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.

* * *

**A/N:** This became as much about mothers as about growing up, and childhood memories, and honoring loss, and love….and I'm just glad I finished it on time. :) Happy Mother's Day!


End file.
